Peep Hole Height?

[mtsage]

Building a DIY peep for my TC Hawken. The barrel rear sight will be removed and the new peep will be mounted on the tang. If you consider all things good, i.e., barrel seated good, proper alignment to breech, level barrel, or another way of saying this, perfect world. Will replace the TC original, 1971, front sight with a blade sight. What is a good guess as to how high will the peep hole be above the barrel line. Will make peep hole 1/8" dia. maybe. Hunting sight, not a target shooting sight. I think I have all things covered here but no doubt missing something.

Ok let me have it. Love this forum.
Thanks,
mtsage

ADDITION Followup Statement:
I'm getting great answers, but not what I'm really asking for. So maybe the easiest way to ask this is:

Could somebody that has a homemade (DIY) peep sight take a measurement of the hole (center to center CTC) to the top to the tang/barrel. And then also how tall is the front sight.

Thanks,
mtsage

 

[erhunter]

I would keep the peep hole around the same height as the rear buckhorn sight. and your new front blade sight around the same height as your original front sight or a little taller. That would leave room for adjustment front and rear and should be pretty close to your original point of impact. I would measure the originals for height and mount your peep and new front blade accordingly mtsage.

 

[mtsage]

I would keep the peep hole around the same height as the rear buckhorn sight. and your new front blade sight around the same height as your original front sight or a little taller. That would leave room for adjustment front and rear and should be pretty close to your original point of impact. I would measure the originals for height and mount your peep and new front blade accordingly mtsage.

This peep will be mounted on the tang for clarity

I would keep the peep hole around the same height as the rear buckhorn sight. and your new front blade sight around the same height as your original front sight or a little taller. That would leave room for adjustment front and rear and should be pretty close to your original point of impact. I would measure the originals for height and mount your peep and new front blade accordingly mtsage.

Hey thanks for the reply. I edited my post to say the new peep will be tang mounted. Sorry if I mislead you as I read your post to assume the peep would replace the rear sight on the barrel. Thanks
mtsage

 

[64Springer]

An 1/8th inch peep at the tang might as well be no rear sight at all. Way too big of a hole. That size may work placed at the original rear sight location.

You will literally see the entire landscape before you with an 1/8th inch hole. The front sight will be floating out there in space.

You need a small aperture of .050 to .070 inches. The idea is to have a hole/sight picture that you can anchor the front sight in.

Millions of M-16s can't be wrong.

 

[erhunter]

This peep will be mounted on the tang for clarity

Hey thanks for the reply. I edited my post to say the new peep will be tang mounted. Sorry if I mislead you as I read your post to assume the peep would replace the rear sight on the barrel. Thanks
mtsage

If you keep the tang mounted peep hole around the same height as your current rear sight you should be close. I agree with the reply of 1/8" is to big.

 

[mtsage]

If you keep the tang mounted peep hole around the same height as your current rear sight you should be close. I agree with the reply of 1/8" is to big.

Point well taken on hole size. Thanks

 

[mtsage]

An 1/8th inch peep at the tang might as well be no rear sight at all. Way too big of a hole. That size may work placed at the original rear sight location.

You will literally see the entire landscape before you with an 1/8th inch hole. The front sight will be floating out there in space.

You need a small aperture of .050 to .070 inches. The idea is to have a hole/sight picture that you can anchor the front sight in.

Millions of M-16s can't be wrong.

Thanks. Agree with the M-16s.

 

[user 34300]

Make the peep sight so the original sights line up. Then remove the rear sight.

Hole diameters? I would encourage folks to shoot an accurate modern rife with a good peep sight, rested and off the bench. Then unscrew the eye cup and stick in your pocket. Shoot again under the same conditions. Compare the groups. You may be surprised at the difference.

Tiny apertures are great under perfect conditions. Not so much in the field. The possibility of not seeing the game or target due to insufficient light with a tiny peep hole is real. Many military rifles used peep hole in the 1/8" range. It was not ignorance or accident that they did that.

"The idea is to have a hole/sight picture that you can anchor the front sight in." I'm not sure what that means. To use a peep sight you simply look through it. No effort to center the front sight is necessary. The alignment is automatic.

Tiny rear sight holes do take advantage of the pinhole effect. The front sight and target will be in focus at the same time. This good for target work, up to a point. For instance, I recently shot a 300 yard match where the target was an OD torso shape on a tan background. The small peep made it impossible to make out the target against the background. I installed a larger peep it got better.

 

[tallpine]

This is the way I did it on a few guns and crossbows and it worked well. Get you a thin piece of sheet metal or brass. Measure the height of your rear sight from the barrel to the bottom of the Vee, Bend the sheet metal into a ninety degree angle and drill a 1/8 inch hole for your aperture at the measured height. Tape it to the tang and go shoot it. Probably going to shoot a tad high due to the angle of the wrist, so you will probably have to make few to get it dialed in or maybe drill another hole higher or lower. They are easy and quick to make if you have to. Once you get it shooting where you want, reproduce your permanente sight to the measurements of your temporary sight. 1/8 is a good starting point for a hunting peep, larger is better in low light situations. This has worked well for me and makes it possible to get it dialed in with doing little or no filing to the front sight or to see if you are even going to like a peep.

 

[Tom A Hawk]

Leave the barrel sight where it is. The peep sight will still sharpen target image at 50 yards and you can set the peep for correct POI at a longer range.

 

[morehops52]

If you can mount your sight w/o the hole drilled you should be able to look front front to rear across your existing sights to get pretty close. As for hole size I have found that I can use many sizes depending on situation. I would recommend getting a thinner piece of metal you can hold near where your sight is and drilling a series of holes to see what works best for you. Blacken the inside of hole too.

 

[Billy Boy]

Building a DIY peep for my TC Hawken. The barrel rear sight will be removed and the new peep will be mounted on the tang. If you consider all things good, i.e., barrel seated good, proper alignment to breech, level barrel, or another way of saying this, perfect world. Replacing TC original, 1971, front sight with a blade sight. I want to be shooting low to start so I have to file front sight down. What is a good guess as to how high will the peep hole be above the barrel line. Will make peep hole 1/8" dia. maybe. Hunting sight, not a target shooting sight. I think I have all things covered here but no doubt missing something.

Ok let me have it. Love this forum.
Thanks,
mtsage

ADDITION Followup Statement:
I'm getting great answers, but not what I'm really asking for. So maybe the easiest way to ask this is:

Could somebody that has a homemade (DIY) peep sight take a measurement of the hole (center to center CTC) to the top to the tang/barrel. And then also how tall is the front sight.

Thanks,
mtsage

Make sure the rifle is sighted in with existing sight, and with the load you plan to use, use the rear sight as a guide for positioning the peep sight.

 

[ronaldrothb49]

If you want to start out shooting low then you need a higher front site. Filing the front sight down will cause you to shoot high.

 

[Greg_E]

Williams has a couple of screw in peeps that are pretty inexpensive, maybe make yours so it accepts those screw in assemblies.

You can see a list on this page, 0.050 to 0.150 looks like their normal range of sizes, might be able to drill slightly larger if needed. Ecommerce

 

[mtsage]

Williams has a couple of screw in peeps that are pretty inexpensive, maybe make yours so it accepts those screw in assemblies.

You can see a list on this page, 0.050 to 0.150 looks like their normal range of sizes, might be able to drill slightly larger if needed. Ecommerce

I'm replacing the William FP sight that just would not work on this gun. Thanks for info though.

 

[mtsage]

So for the rest of the story of the DIY peep. Earlier this year I replaced the original setup on this Hawken. My eyes are not what they used to be. So I installed a Williams FP peep. I could not get the POI down with the Williams. I had it screwed all the way down. Bottomed out on the adjustment. No more easy ways to get the POI down other than to install a higher front sight. Didn't want a big tall sight on the front. I measured the Williams peep and the peep hole was at 5/8" above barrel. Too high. Was higher than the front original sight. Thus the diy peep. Trying to lower all. I will get this.

 

[Greg_E]

Which Williams? I have the CVA octagon style glued to my barrel for testing, I had to lower the stock front site by a bit, think I'm under 1/2 inch right now. But I also think this sight is still too far away, bad eyes too, but when I've had pic rail peep and PST on modern rifles, I can see the targets better, but those are right close. I think a tang sight will be in my future or a period style scope.

 

[mtsage]

Which Williams? I have the CVA octagon style glued to my barrel for testing, I had to lower the stock front site by a bit, think I'm under 1/2 inch right now. But I also think this sight is still too far away, bad eyes too, but when I've had pic rail peep and PST on modern rifles, I can see the targets better, but those are right close. I think a tang sight will be in my future or a period style scope.

FP-Hawken

 

[Howard Pippin]

Building a DIY peep for my TC Hawken. The barrel rear sight will be removed and the new peep will be mounted on the tang. If you consider all things good, i.e., barrel seated good, proper alignment to breech, level barrel, or another way of saying this, perfect world. Will replace the TC original, 1971, front sight with a blade sight. What is a good guess as to how high will the peep hole be above the barrel line. Will make peep hole 1/8" dia. maybe. Hunting sight, not a target shooting sight. I think I have all things covered here but no doubt missing something.

Ok let me have it. Love this forum.
Thanks,
mtsage

ADDITION Followup Statement:
I'm getting great answers, but not what I'm really asking for. So maybe the easiest way to ask this is:

Could somebody that has a homemade (DIY) peep sight take a measurement of the hole (center to center CTC) to the top to the tang/barrel. And then also how tall is the front sight.

Thanks,
mtsage

What I did to find the height of the centerline of the peep hole, Was to put a string over the top of the front sight and through the center of the regular back sight back to where I wanted to put the peep and measured how high the string was above the barrel at that site. That's told me about how high the center would have to be. As far as the size of the peephole, I'm going to paste what I said on another website and I still believe this to be true about hole size, but to each his own.

Having experimented with different size holes for peep sites that I've made for my muzzleloader's, I discovered that a very large hole compared to most, doesn't seen to be as inaccurate as a person would think. The last one made, was 3/16 (.1875) drill bit size, which is a tiny bit large. 5/32 (.156) would probably be a little more ideal. Mine are used both for hunting and target shooting and the advantage of the large peep for hunting cannot be expressed good enough. With my peeps I can see the whole critter and can still center the bead where I want it. I'm not a long-range shooter such as Idaho Ron or some, strictly hunt with round balls and feel that 100 yards is the top end. I'm still able to get that close. I also use a fairly large outside diameter, possibly up to 5/8 of an inch.
Squint

 

[Col. Batguano]

It's not a question of how high above the barrel flat or centerline. It's a question of your personal geometry in how you shoot the gun to have your eye naturally align with it as you mount the gun. You don't want to have to cant your head on the stock to get your eye in alignment.

That's why (when starting a build) I take a whole lot of measurements with the butt plate I'm going to use to find out where my cheek is going to land, and then how much elevation from there I'll need to line up the sights. That will give me the cast-off I'll need too for a vertical head orientation. Your balance is better when your head is upright, and that helps with stability and accuracy. You also see the best when your pupil is centered in the eye socket, and you get less eye fatigue.